Day Jobs
by RapunzelK
Summary: Bob Parr gives a mental monologue about the various jobs he's had before Insuricare. Oneshot.


10/25/05

Day Job

She's counting on me. They're counting on me. Helen, Violet, Dash, Jack-Jack… We've had to make so many changes to everything. We can't let people know who we are, what we are. Not that we ever COULD but…there's no outlet now. The mask was freedom. And now I'm a prisoner, trapped in an identity that was only ever meant to be temporary. This was never really my life. This was not my day job. This was not what I was born to do. Don't get me wrong I love being a dad, a father, a husband. It's being Robert Parr that I can't stand.

I don't know how Helen does it. How Lucius or Honey or any of the others put up with it. I know Simon had a rough time adjusting, but at least he's still fighting the good fight, even if it's with paperwork. God how pathetic is that? Saving the world one policy at a time, like Helen says. She can say that. She doesn't have to put up with it. Loop holes, liability clauses, I could puke. I hate it. Not the insurance, I don't hate that, what I hate is that no one freaking CARES. Nobody EXPECTS anything to be done. No one even TRIES to make anything happen for these people. Except me. And I get reprimanded for it. Someone please tell me where the sense in that is?

I never thought of myself as having a short fuse. But then, I never thought of myself as an insurance broker either. Or as bald. Or fat. Or as a private citizen. It really brings a whole new dimension to the idea of "house arrest". This is the fifth job I've gotten kicked out of now. Though I'm sure I'm not the only one who wanted to put Huph through a wall or three. He's an obnoxious little rat, but I'm glad I didn't kill him.

I miss the police department. At least I could still help out, catch bad guys, perform a public service. The whole bullet-resistant thing caught up to me tho. And that charge of police brutality didn't help either. I forget how strong I am sometimes. The situation was completely justified, but that's the US legal system for you.

The fire department wasn't bad either. That was fun. Not as hands-on as the PD, but still nice. Still something where I could use my strength constructively. Again, my lack of subtlety got me in trouble. And the fact that I was unable to save a historic structure. They seem to forget that it was either the building or the janitor. Doesn't anybody care about the life of an old man?

They put me away for a while after that. No more public servant jobs for me, not even as a garbage man. Instead they sent us up country, out to the hills, away from the city and organized crime. It was beautiful, yet boring, and I never really got to appreciate the outdoors. I was trapped a hundred miles beneath the surface of the earth, chunking coal. Anthracite. That's the hard kind. You have to use dynamite to get it loose, sledgehammers to chunk it up, and big carts to haul it out. I was good at that. Gave me an excuse to work off some of my frustrations. A guy as big as me was appreciated down there. I don't think I'd ever been as close to any people as I was to those guys. But again, my greatest asset got me into trouble. I punctured a methane pocket, which filled the shaft with poison and also weakened one of the supports. I held it up until everybody got out safely. They might have let me back down since no one was hurt, but I already had a bad cough and Helen was afraid for my health. So we left. I regret leaving the guys, but nothing else.

I spent two weeks as a car salesman. Until I accidentally put my foot through the clutch and floor of a Thunder Bird. And that was the end of that. Honestly, I'm not sure whose idea THAT one was.

Construction was okay. Again, it was a place where my strength and near-invulnerability were put to good use. Until that affair with the I-beam and the Cadillac. That was unfortunate. I think I could have been happy building skyscrapers.

I guess the NSA thought I'd be safest behind a desk. Not much damage you can do with a computer. So they sentenced me to solitary confinement. There I sat for three long years, rotting behind that computer monitor, fighting for chair space with the support column, listening to the endless laments of clients I was forbidden to help. That was my punishment: a life sentence of boredom, of mediocrity, of small-minded people who didn't care how badly they screwed their fellow man just as long as they made the bottom line.

So I took up a hobby. Some people paint, some play golf. Me? I ran around in a ski mask stopping bad guys. There are pros and cons to looking like a thug yourself. The upshot is no one marks you as anything special. The downside is, the police sometimes try to arrest YOU. Obviously, that can pose a bit of a problem. I had a couple narrow escapes that landed me in hot water with Rick and with my wife. Helen understood a little bit, but she was always better at dealing with stress than I was. I just…if I couldn't have SOME sort of outlet I knew I'd bust.

And I did.

I put my boss through a wall. Six walls, in fact. He lived. Will I? I can't tell Helen I got fired AGAIN. I can't uproot my family because of another stupid mistake, because I can't hold my inner super. I'm on my own now. No one's looking out for me. Not even Rick. I don't feel very super anymore. I haven't felt super, hell I haven't even felt like MYSELF in ages. Years. I love my wife, I love my kids, but…what can I possibly tell them? How can I tell them? They can never know that this is killing me, that I CAN'T DO THIS. And I'll have to. I have go on. They need me. Well, they need my paycheck. Sometimes I wonder how much good I really do for them, how much of a difference I make in their lives. I'm barely home anyway. Would they ever miss me if I never came back? I'm losing my mind. I must be. All I can do is go on, but I don't know which way to go.


End file.
